Cotton harvesting can be divided into four groups; hand method, air method, (pneumatic, vacuum), stripper method, and spindle method.
Hand method: Cotton was first harvested by hand and had to be pulled from every boll, which required bending and stooping for long periods of time. As the cotton was picked it was put into long cloth bags which pickers would drag behind them until they became too heavy and had to be emptied. Hand picking was slow and labor intensive, requiring massive amounts of people to harvest the ever increasing amount of cotton planted yearly.
Air Method: Cotton is vacuumed from cotton plants and is blown into harvester's basket. Air harvesting of cotton has been tried for many years, yet without any commercial success. International Harvester (IH) of Chicago, Ill., experimented with pneumatic pickers, but after three years of work, Harvester realized that a skilled hand picker could easily pick faster than their pneumatic machine.
Stripper method: Stripper harvesters are used to harvest cotton; the stripper harvester works by stripping cotton off the cotton stalks where large amounts of unwanted material are also stripped from cotton stalks and must be removed (separated) from the seed cotton. Higher ginning cost has a negative impact on stripper harvesting.
Spindle method: Spindle pickers use rotating barbed spindles to snare seed cotton and pull it from the cotton plant. Doffers then remove cotton from spindles which is then blown into harvester's basket. Spindle cotton harvesting was made possible with the Rust Brothers' spindle harvester. Now more cotton could be harvested using less people to harvest it. Although, more cotton could be harvested in less time, other problems had to be overcome, spindle picked cotton had a higher trash content than hand picked cotton. Also spindles would grind trash into cotton fibers, making it more difficult to gin. Spindle harvesters require a certain amount of spindles to adequately pick cotton. With increased harvesting speed, more spindles are required to keep pace with the speed of harvesters. A closer look at spindle cotton harvesters reveals that spindle harvesters are one of the most complicated pieces of farm equipment on the farm, and are reaching their maximum in these areas: Size, weight, speed, row width, cost, water (365 gal. approximately 2,920 lbs.), Lubrication (80 gal. approximately 600 lbs.). Other problems with spindle harvesters are; Spindles, doffers, moistener pads, chains, bars, and cutter blades wear out, wetting seed cotton, seed damage, spindle twist, spindle warping, spindle breakage, trash content (rotating spindles grind bark from stalk). Safety is also a problem with spindle harvesters. Recognizing the problems with spindle and stripper harvesters is the first step in solving these problems.
Although no successful commercial harvesters has been produced, those early inventors knew that air harvesting was worthy of refinement and researching. Since then many advancements have been made which were not available to them. As we look back over the many patents, as far back as the 1800's, we can get an overall picture of how air was used in cotton harvesters. We also must understand that those inventions did not reflect the modern harvesting methods of today. At that time, hand picking was the standard, and no one could have envisioned the huge cotton harvesters of today.
Modern cotton farming has changed the way cotton is planted, cultivated, and harvested. Cotton plants are grown closer together producing a more uniform cotton plant which makes it more preferable for modern mechanical harvesting. Uniform growing of cotton plants make it easier to compress cotton limbs together as cotton plants pass thru harvester units.
Cotton is well suited for air harvesting in that it reacts well to air flow, and is easily dislodged, (vacuumed) from cotton burr, it takes less air flow, (wind, force, vacuum) to pull seed cotton from cotton burr than to pull burr from cotton stalk. Harvester's ground speed cannot over take the air speed used to harvest seed cotton. From start to finish, cotton air harvesters use air flow as a complete harvesting method, air is a reusable resource; air never wears out. Air harvesting offers the greatest possibilities and overall improvements in cotton harvesting. No other harvesting methods are equal to these possibilities and improvements.